Are you someone special?

Are you a person with a moral fortitude so strong and resilient that societal influences, orders from authoritative figures and cultural norms do not affect you?

If you answered yes to this question, then I have some news for you: you are lying to yourself. Unless you are a divine being or living a completely secluded life that is far removed from interactions with other people, there is no way you could be immune to these things. It just isn't possible.

Past experiments (Example 1, Example 2) have demonstrated that when it comes to accumulating power or receiving orders from authoritative figures, the majority of human beings do not adhere to their supposedly stern moral compass.

It's tiring to read about so many people with holier-than-thou attitudes thinking they are exempt from the societal influences around them, as though they are special or unique in some way. "I would never do that!" or "there is no way anyone could make me do that!" are easy words to say when you are living in a free and democratic society, far removed from the rigors and pressures that many others face on a daily basis.

What if you were ordered to do something on penalty of torture/death if you refused? Even worse, what if your loved ones were threatened with the same fate if you did not comply? I believe most people would succumb to the demands of those issuing the orders.

In many ways, these types of people are not as far removed from the "society encourages it so I accept it" as they would like to think. Take eating meat for example. There is a very dark side to the meat industry. Everybody knows that meat doesn't just appear from nowhere. Animals need to be captured, slaughtered and processed. But it is something we just put at the back of our minds because well it's good for the economy and our health.

Do you think in 100 years from now they will look back at our meat-eating habits and think "how could anybody living then support the meat industry?" It really makes you think, doesn't it? What is considered moral, socially acceptable and culturally expected today might not be so in 10, 20 or 100 years from now. It's all about societal acceptance at the time and very few escape its grasp.

Well, I for one can say I am not someone special.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

This is a pretty deep philosophical conundrum.

Much like the beneficial psychological effect of the possibility of ubiquitous concealed weapons, the mythology of berserker defiance against kidnapping, extortion and all forms of coercion has its place.

We would rather the criminals who conceive of doing these things think we will kill everyone in the room the instant they show their hand than have those same criminals believe that most people are pacifists.

Weakness is provocative.

It's a matter of scale ... in the grand scheme of things I'm just a needle in a hay stack, in my company I consider myself special just because I have specialized skills no-one else has and that's why I have my particular job. Once I leave for the day, I am just another living creature on the surface of the planet.

Of course I'm special! I'm that special that I'm................special. I'm more special than you or any other human being in the world because I'm alive and it's my life. Kill me and I'm no longer special. Life is special and it's specific to you.
What's this with meat? We've been eating meat for thousands of years and no ones complained before the modern era of tree huggers so what makes you think that people in a hundred years will complain?
The excuse of "you'd not eat meat if you saw how it was killed and butchered" is very infantile as only small children and people with their heads in the sand do not know where and how meat reaches the dining table.

Is simple really, the more money you have the more special you are. Special attention, special treatment, special care.

Everyone is unique, one of a kind in all the Universe. That doesn't make one better than anyone else.

Sadly, we have been conditioned to compete against each other since childhood, in everything.

The Matrix has you, Neo.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

originally posted by: crayzeed
Of course I'm special! I'm that special that I'm................special. I'm more special than you or any other human being in the world because I'm alive and it's my life. Kill me and I'm no longer special. Life is special and it's specific to you.
What's this with meat? We've been eating meat for thousands of years and no ones complained before the modern era of tree huggers so what makes you think that people in a hundred years will complain?
The excuse of "you'd not eat meat if you saw how it was killed and butchered" is very infantile as only small children and people with their heads in the sand do not know where and how meat reaches the dining table.

I think he's referring to the disgusting and excessively cruel ways meat is produced on an industrial scale.

If you saw how the beef you're eating came from a cow with festering sores all over its body, with a prolapsed rectum hanging down into the dirt, fattened on hormones and stuffed in a tiny cell, you probably wouldn't want to eat beef.

And yet you willfully ignore this and pretend like the meat your eating came from a natural animal and not some processed, anguished, wailing creature born into a tiny stall in a noisy factory, knowing nothing but pain and entrapment.

What's infantile is you believing your meat came from any situation other than that.

I find this post completely irrelevant as if someone is or is not special.

The OP targets a specific kind of "special" that fits his view of life.
We all are special for somebody else, at least for one another person. Every person is special for its parents, or for its life partner, for its kids, and so on.
An autistic person is special, so is an homosexual, an artist, a spiritual leader and so on.
There are so many ways of being special that to say that nobody is special seems mean and very limited IMO.

So nobody is as "morally special" as they think they are?
Is true that everyone under the right (or wrong) conditions and pressure could became a thief, or a murderer and so on. Under extreme conditions people have eaten other people to survive. But how is that relevant to what a person IS right now?
Maybe if the need will come I will kill another person to protect myself or my dear ones. But so far I never killed anyone, not even an animal and that must count for something. Or is a lifetime of moral behavior dismissed because of an hypotethical situation?

To be honest nobody knows for sure if they will or will not break their moral principles under extreme conditions; but people are sincere when they say "I will never do that" because they mean under current situations. The correct assumption would be that you can never judge what a person does since you're not in his shoes, yes, but to say nobody is special because they all have the potential to fall...
If Piccasso would have lost his eye sight he would never became a great painter, but who cares? He was a great painter as he was. We live our lives by what is not by what will be if.

And to take the example of meat eating, and thus supporting the meat industries. Ok we are not special in that sense, but we abolished slavery, gave women full rights, invented human rights, children rights and so on. Doesn't that count also? Compared with our 500 years ago ancestors we are doing better, just like probably future generations will be better compared to us.

Maybe none of us are really better than the rest, but we are our own best, and we all are special in our own way.

originally posted by: WhiteHat
I find this post completely irrelevant as if someone is or is not special.

The OP targets a specific kind of "special" that fits his view of life.
We all are special for somebody else, at least for one another person. Every person is special for its parents, or for its life partner, for its kids, and so on.
An autistic person is special, so is an homosexual, an artist, a spiritual leader and so on.
There are so many ways of being special that to say that nobody is special seems mean and very limited IMO.

So nobody is as "morally special" as they think they are?
Is true that everyone under the right (or wrong) conditions and pressure could became a thief, or a murderer and so on. Under extreme conditions people have eaten other people to survive. But how is that relevant to what a person IS right now?
Maybe if the need will come I will kill another person to protect myself or my dear ones. But so far I never killed anyone, not even an animal and that must count for something. Or is a lifetime of moral behavior dismissed because of an hypotethical situation?

To be honest nobody knows for sure if they will or will not break their moral principles under extreme conditions; but people are sincere when they say "I will never do that" because they mean under current situations. The correct assumption would that you can never judge what a person does since you're not in his shoes, but to say nobody is ok because they all have the potential to fall... We live our lives by what is not by what will be if.

And to take the example of meat eating, and thus supporting the meat industries. Ok we are not special in that sense, but we abolished slavery, gave women full rights, invented human rights, children rights and so on. Compared with our 500 years ago ancestors we are doing better, just like probably future generations will be better compared to us.

Maybe none of us are really better than the rest, but we are our own best, and we are special in our own way.

Yeah, we sure are doing better. So much better, in fact, that we don't cavort all over this planet killing brown people and looting their countries, so that you can sit here and post your precious opinions on this website. Neither are the disenfranchised in our own countries crushed under the weight of pitiless mercantile mass thievery. But nevermind all that, we have social justice and women's rights.

We are doing so much better. Our ancestors were just dumb bigots, we're so enlightened and modern now.

Did you forget to put on your clown costume today?

Well, you indeed don't seem to be better, and attitudes like yours is maybe the reason so much bad is happening in this world.
But feel free to quit this society whenever you want if we are not special enough for you.
We will manage without your righteousness, trust me.

a reply to: WhiteHat

Indeed, you must be the righteous one here. Righteously sitting there at your computer, sniffing your own gas and lauding our progress. The reason "so much bad" is happening now is because most people think exactly the way you do. What's even more righteous is pretending like humanity is any different or better than it's always been.

Go ahead and wipe the cheeto powder off your fingers, sit down in front of the TV and give it your bleary-eyed attention while it tells you how much better we modern people are now.

originally posted by: Talorc
a reply to: WhiteHat

Indeed, you must be the righteous one here. Righteously sitting there at your computer, sniffing your own gas and lauding our progress. The reason "so much bad" is happening now is because most people think exactly the way you do. What's even more righteous is pretending like humanity is any different or better than it's always been.

Go ahead and wipe the cheeto powder off your fingers, sit down in front of the TV and give it your bleary-eyed attention while it tells you how much better we modern people are now.

How exactly thinking that everyone is special can bring something bad to others, please enlighten me.
And by the way I don't eat Cheetos, sorry. I do smoke, so there you go, rant about that in absence of any logical argument.

a reply to: Dark Ghost

I eat meat and I think the way it's harvested is wrong. I admit I'm a hypocrite on this point. I'm not ready to give up meat, but I'd like to see better sources at least. Some people do abstain from meet because of moral principles, hats off to them. Some people are special; but not many, or they wouldn't be special.

a reply to: Talorc
To me it would appear as if you're the one sitting in judgment of someone else's opinion as if you feel you're better. That's the self righteous attitude being referenced here. But the name calling really points to some other issue. No one who is "winning" a debate resorts to name calling... it makes your whole post comical and ironic.

To the point of this thread - none of us are "more special" than anyone else. Anyone who believes they are better than others is part of the problem. In my opinion, the person who serves others without judgment or discrimination of any kind is the kind of person I admire.

originally posted by: WhiteHat

originally posted by: Talorc
a reply to: WhiteHat

Indeed, you must be the righteous one here. Righteously sitting there at your computer, sniffing your own gas and lauding our progress. The reason "so much bad" is happening now is because most people think exactly the way you do. What's even more righteous is pretending like humanity is any different or better than it's always been.

Go ahead and wipe the cheeto powder off your fingers, sit down in front of the TV and give it your bleary-eyed attention while it tells you how much better we modern people are now.

How exactly thinking that everyone is special can bring something bad to others, please enlighten me.
And by the way I don't eat Cheetos, sorry. I do smoke, so there you go, rant about that in absence of any logical argument.

You know who also thinks they're special? The guys up top, reaching around and buggering you from behind while you praise the modern world.

Think man, think. Nothing's changed. They want you to think it has, so they can continue buggering you as you giggle with pleasure.

Certain people in the past had grips on a kind of wisdom that's all but lost, and they have advice for us that's more pertinent today than it ever has been- never forget that.

I'm not trying to insult you, I'm trying to open your eyes. I am your friend, the stealth-buggerers are your enemy.

originally posted by: tallcool1
a reply to: Talorc
To me it would appear as if you're the one sitting in judgment of someone else's opinion as if you feel you're better. That's the self righteous attitude being referenced here. But the name calling really points to some other issue. No one who is "winning" a debate resorts to name calling... it makes your whole post comical and ironic.

To the point of this thread - none of us are "more special" than anyone else. Anyone who believes they are better than others is part of the problem. In my opinion, the person who serves others without judgment or discrimination of any kind is the kind of person I admire.

The fact that my insults bother you so much says more about your self-righteousness than it does mine. Since I am just a self-righteous fool, you should be laughing at my behaviour here rather than getting offended. But you're not, perhaps becuase there's a grain of truth under the foolishness. Anyone who's worth their salt doesn't fight with people, they fight with the ideas people have got in their heads. Insults just get people's attention.

I am the last person who thinks he's better than anyone, truly.

Stayin' under the radar. That's all.

a reply to: Talorc

I don't care about what others want me to think. I see with my own eyes.
If I would've live 500 years I would probably slaved all my life for just some food to put on my table, I would have probably sold my kids, I would have bad teeth and probably died by now from siphillis or some other minor infection. Never knew how to read or knew nothing about this world.

Things have changed. Not for everyone and maybe not the way we would wanted, but they have changed. The simple fact that you and I can argue over half of the world without moving an inch is a miracle in itself. Too bad you don't see it that way.
And all these changes are brought on by people. Slowly, painfully, with sacrifices. Why to see only the bad?
There is still wisdom out there, lots of it. Not on TV of course, but those who know where to look are finding it.
We have access to wisdom, old or new, and that is even more important.
There are vegetarians out there, a lot of them. I believe in time there will be more.
We are not perfect, ok, and will never be, because is not in the human nature. But we try to get better all the time.

The solution is not to blame everyone else. No one can fix the world as a whole. But we can fix people, one at a time, starting with ourselves.

No surprise, you can get people to do whatever you want for the most part. The key is in understanding how humans think and using that to your advantage. People can be convinced of just about anything, I would imagine for some it has become a game or sport. Just like how we laugh at a hypnotist stage show, there are no doubt powerful people laughing at the public. We dance the dance we're told to without even realizing it most of the time.

a reply to: WhiteHat

Maybe I'm just a bitter person then. But you know what's painful to see, what disillusioned me? The fact that all the knowledge and wisdom are there, and most people will not take it. They won't touch it, they won't even look at it.

Do you know why that is? It's not because they're stupid, it's because certain people in this world told them they're stupid, and they became just like they were told. There is something profoundly rotten in this world, perhaps moreso than ever before in history.

I'd rather be whipped, chained, and physically enslaved than have some sick, remorseless crook make me enslave myself. The dark years of the past were mean, dreadful and short, but they were honest. People were honest when they hurt you, subjugated you, raped and slew you. Ignorance was happy ignorance, the naive ignorance of a farmer and his family. Ignorance is now a dark, ugly thing, cruel and dangerous like a weapon in the hand of the stealth-buggerers.

You cannot be complacent about things, my friend. Complacency is death.